Sunday, 15 June 2014

The narrator is a man who is left lying incapable in
the street, in mortal need of help. Those who come by are familiar
characters from Brassens' world, for most of whom, Brassens had previously
expressed admiration and sympathy in different songs: his local barman, a barefoot
vagrant, a penniless, long-term student, the good wife of a working
class man’ a hard-working street girl, a policeman.

Only one of these proves to be the good Samaritan
and it comes as a surprise.

The
story reflects a dramatic event in Brassens’
later years. I have written an
account of this, which I have included after the translation notes so that you
view the song first.

L'épave(1) - The human wreck

J'en appelle à Bacchus ! À
Bacchus j'en appelle! (2)

Le tavernier du coin vient
d' me la bailler belle(3).

De son établissement j'étais
l' meilleur pilier.(4)

Quand j'eus bu tous mes
sous, il me mit à la porte

En disant : " Les
poivrots, le diable les emporte!

Ça n' fait rien, il y a des
bistrots bien singuliers...

Un certain va-nu-pieds(5)
qui passe et me trouve ivre-

Mort, croyant tout de bon
que j'ai cessé de vivre

(Vous auriez fait pareil), s'en prit à mes
souliers(6).

Pauvre homme ! Vu l'état
piteux de mes godasses,

Je dout' qu'il trouve avec
son chemin de Damas.(7)

Ça n' fait rien, il y a des
passants bien singuliers...

Un étudiant miteux s'en prit
à ma liquette(8)

Qui, à la faveur d'la nuit
lui avait paru coquette,

Mais en plein jour ses yeux
ont dû se dessiller.

Je l' plains de tout mon
cœur, pauvre enfant, s'il l'a mise,

Vu que, d'un homme heureux,
(9) c'était loin d'êtr' la ch'mise.

Ça n' fait rien, y a des
étudiants bien singuliers...

La femm' d'un ouvrier s'en
prit à ma culotte.

"Pas ça, madam', pas ça
! Mille et un coups de bottes

Ont tant usé le fond que, si
vous essayiez

D' la mettre à votr' mari,
bientôt, je vous en fiche

(10),

Mon billet,il aurait du
verglas sur les miches(11)."

Ça n' fait rien, il y a des
ménages bien singuliers...

Et j'étais là, tout nu, sur le
bord du trottoir

Exhibant, malgré moi, mes
humbles génitoires.

Une petit' vertu(12)
rentrant de travailler,

Elle qui, chaque soir, en
voyait un' douzaine,

Courut dire aux agents :
"J'ai vu quelqu' chos' d'obscène !"

Ça n' fait rien, il y a des
tapins bien singuliers...

Le r'présentant d' la loi
vint, d'un pas débonnaire.

Sitôt qu'il m'aperçut il
s'écria : "Tonnerre !

On est en plein hiver, et si
vous vous geliez !"

Et, de peur que j' n'attrape
une fluxion d' poitrine,

Le bougre, il me couvrit
avec sa pèlerine.

Ça n' fait rien, il y a des
flics bien singuliers...

Et depuis ce jour-là, moi,
le fier, le bravache,

Moi, dont le cri de guerr'
fut toujours : "Mort aux vaches(13) !"

Plus une seule fois je n'ai
pu le brailler.

J'essaye bien encor, mais ma
langue honteuse

Retombe lourdement dans ma
bouche pâteuse.

Ça n' fait rien, nous vivons
un temps bien singulier...

I appeal to Bacchus! To Bacchus I appeal!

The landlord of our pub has just played the dirty on me

Of his establishment I was the strongest pillar

When I’d drunk my last cent, he had had me slung out

Saying: "Drunkards, let them all go to the
devil "

No big deal; there are some pubs most peculiar.

A certain down and out, passes and finds me
dead drunk -.

Honestly believing that I have stopped living

(You would have done the same), made off with my
shoes.

The poor man! In view of their pitiable state

I doubt he’ll find with them his road to
Damascus.

No big deal; there’re some passers-by most peculiar.

A shabby looking student made off with my shirt

Which, flattered by the dark, had seemed to
him real smart,

But the light of day must have opened his eyes.

I much pity him, poor kid, if he put it on

"Shirt of a happy man" it was far from being

No big deal; there’re some students most peculiar .

The wife of a workman made off with my trousers.

“Not those, Madame, not those!" A’thousand
and one boot-caps

Have so worn the seat of the pants that if you
tried

To fit them on your husband, I bet my last cent

He would get sheets of ice upon his
buttocks."

No big deal; there are some families most peculiar.

And there I was stark naked, on the pavement edge

Showing, despite myself, my humble genitals.

A street girl, going back home from one of her
jobs ,

She who, saw a dozen of the same every night,

Ran to tell the police: "I’ve seen something
obscene!"

No big deal; there are some floozies most peculiar.

The custodian of the law came sauntering up

As soon as he noticed me he exclaimed:
“Good grief!

We’re in depth of winter, what if you get
frozen!”

And for fear I might catch double pneumonia

The fellow, he covered me in his heavy
cloak,

No big deal; there are some cops most peculiar...

And since that very day, I, the proud, the loud
mouth,

I, whose war cry had been always: "Death to
the pigs!"

Not one single time more could I yell it.

I try very hard still, but my tongue to its shame

Falls heavily back down in my mouth, where it sticks.

No big deal; we live in times most peculiar.

TRANSLATION
NOTES

1)Épave – means wreck or shipwreck but
also a person who has fallen into an abject state. At first, I had seen this as a light- hearted song. However, having since learnt of a close friend , who had known glittering success but took progressively to drink and saw all the elements of his life disintegrate around him, I see the same situation in this song - the tragedy of addiction.

4)Pilier –means a pillar – the idiom: C’est
un pilier de bistro means some-one who spends their life in pubs

5)Un certain va-nu-pieds – Un
va-nu-pieds means a tramp or a beggar. In history “les Nu-Pieds” were the
common people of Normandy who rose in revolt in July 1639, reduced to misery by
a succession of bad harvests and an outbreak of plague. As the characters in
the song are representatives of Brassens’ earlier assocates perhaps the
barefoot man is a fellow impecunious revolutionary in pursuit of a
lofty ideal, whose realisation might or might not come like the flash of
light to Saint Paul on the road to Damascus

6)S’en prendre à = to set about/ to lay
into

7)Son chemin de Damas – symbolises an
overwhelming moment of enlightenment as it was on the road to Damascus that St
Paul was converted with his vision of Christ

8)Ma liquette – apparently “liquette”
is slang for shirt.

9)….. d'un homme heureux, c'était
loin d'êtr' la ch'mise – The fable of the « Shirt of a happy man »
seems to be quite well-known in France, although I have never met it in
England. Jules Verne has a story about it and at the start of his “La
chemise d’un homme heureux”, he gives us an explanation, that helps us
understand this line:

Once upon a time a son of the great Haroun-al-Raschid, who was not happy,
went to consult an old derviche. The wise old man answered him that
happiness was a difficult thing to find in this world. “However”, he
added “I know an infallible means of procuring happiness for you.

“What is it?” asked the prince.

“It is,” replied the Derviche, “to put on the shirt of a happy man!”

10)Ficher mon billet means to bet my
bottom dollar

11)Une miche – is a round bun, hence in
less polite usage it means buttock. For
reason of its shape it is also a rude word for a breast.

12)“Une femme de petite vertu” is a term
for a prostitute. Brassens has condensed the expression.

13)10) Mort aux vaches ! – This is the
standard abusive slogan used in France when violent extremists are restrained
by the police. The choice of cows as a symbol of oppression is most
puzzling as we think of them usually as animals peacefully chewing grass in
fields. A theory is that the expression dates back to 1914- 1918 War,
when the French people of the occupied Northern area shouted the slogan:”Mort
au Wacht”. The Wacht were the German police.

Brassens would have shouted this slogan often in his mid-twenties when he
was a in an activist Anarchist group, of which he was one of the leaders.
His song Hecatombe (1953) shows his earlier, bitter anti-police feelings, where
uses the slogan in the following lines (“Elles”
refers to evil belligerent women in their mob):

Frénétiqu' l'une d'elles attache

Le vieux maréchal des logis

Et lui fait crier: "Mort aux
vaches,

Mort aux lois, vive l'anarchie!"L’Epave is a song of his
mature years, when Brassens is pointing out that there is good and bad in us all,
no matter how we are labelled. Brassens
had had a dramatic personal reminder of this, when he collapsed
outside a theatre where he was performing (See below).

The true story behind
this song

The videos of Brassens performing his
songs onstage often show him sweating and looking strained. He
frequently suffered from excruciating stage fright and and the strain of his
stage performances was aggravated as time went on as his health collapsed. Sometimes
he went on stage when he was a very sick man, sometimes with an ambulance
waiting at the stage door.

The incident, upon which “L’Epave” is
based, occurred on one such evening. In his dressing room, Georges
Brassens found himself gasping so desperately for breath that he was forced to
go outdoors without time to slip on his coat. As he struggled with
his problem, a policeman happened to pass by. He was alarmed to see
a man in such a state on a freezing cold night. Immediately, he took
off his heavy police cape and kept Brassens wrapped in it, until he was
sufficiently recovered to go back inside.

The song “L’Épave” is therefore an
expression of thanks from Brassens to an unknown Paris police officer.